"I have been dealing with feelings of shame and of sometimes wanting to just hide."

Hello Ayal,

This is a problem that I have been dealing with practically all my life. I have been dealing with feelings of shame and of sometimes wanting to just hide, and it seems to be getting worse or maybe it's that I'm more aware of it and ready to deal with it. I don't quite know how this problem started, if I carried it over from a past life or developed it in this life. I'm extremely angry because somewhere along the line somebody or a set of circumstances made me feel this way. Also, I don't know exactly what it is I'm ashamed about, but, this seems to be an unconscious behavior. For example, one of the ways the shame manifests itself is if I wear a certain type of clothing, such as dresses or a bathing suit, or a blouse that shows the slightest cleavage. Also, I'll feel ashamed if I wear a certain hairstyle or if people just look at me a certain way. How do I deal with this? There is no reason why I should be living this way. I don't feel I did anything to be ashamed of. I want to clear this out of my body and is considering therapy combined with bodywork. Does shame deal with the first three chakras? I have fibroids and endometriosis. Is this in some way a result of unconscious shame? Could you provide some insight on this problem and some ways I can get rid of this debilitating unconscious problem?

Hi. Thanks for writing in. It does sound as if you are ready to confront this now and deal with it. That's GREAT!

OK. Here is what is showing up. First of all, you are feeling guilt and remorse from the past, and it has to do with not feeling loved, from feeling criticized. The affirmation for this is:

I am love. I now choose to love and approve of myself. I see others with love.

You can't see others with love if you don't love yourself – if you see others, or believe others to be threatening, or as something that will make you feel ashamed or belittled, well then, how can you reach out to love or feel safe with that? Then the urge WOULD be to try to hide from that, rather then to be able to make healthy or intimate relationships.

There are some things you can do to get in touch with this original place of shame that you feel, and release it. One of the best I know of is Whole Heart Healing. Read about it at www.peakstates.com, and then follow the technique given there. I would do this technique 3 times in the next 2 weeks.

After you have released it, you can then bring into your field the above affirmation – but, as with any thought form to work, you have to FEEL the energy of it – drinking that energy into your being, like a flower drinks in the rain.

The other thing that is showing up for you is that this is an old ancestral pattern that has been passed down through the generations. So, there is a way to "release the burden of the ancestral tree," and it is this:

In meditation, after you have become very calm and quiet, picture yourself traveling down through your body, and stopping at your navel. You are looking out through your navel as one might look through a keyhole, and there you see a tunnel. From this tunnel, you see a room open up, and you walk down this tunnel to this room, where there is a group of your ancestors gathered. You let them know that they can all release this burden of feeling unloved, feeling not good enough, and the shame that comes from that – there is also some issue of feeling victimized going on here – so they can all release any beliefs that they are victims, as well - and they can follow you out into the light of day. So, you turn around, walk out of the room, and you all walk up these stairs into the light of day, where they depart, each going where they need to go. You, then, re-enter your own body (make sure none of your ancestors comes with you).

I might do this 3 times, to make sure you've cleared it out, within a 2 week period.

When people feel victimized, the other thing that happens is that then need the approval of others to feel ok about themselves, because their whole ideology is based on externals – based on their not having power, but someone else does. So, if you think you have no power, then you can't love or take care of or approve of yourself. You've turned that job over to someone else – and that never works. So, how surprised would you be that a huge life lesson you came in to learn, that your ancestors were trying to learn too, is that YOU have to take the power and claim the power within yourself to love and approve of yourself, and not turn that job over to anyone else. It is time to become internally generated, to become your own INNER AUTHORITY, and release the need or belief that you can't love or take care of yourself.

That's what this journey is all about.

I want to add one more thing to my response to you.

Shame is an insidious thing – it isn’t necessarily located in any specific chakra, although it does lodge sometimes in a specific place. For you, it’s mostly in your 3rd (honoring and loving yourself) and 5th (being able to speak your truth) chakras.

When we have been criticized incessantly as children, the message we internalize is that we are no good, shameful, worthless – that we need to hide ourselves away for 2 reasons:

to survive, we need to avoid the continuing barrage of utterly destructive energy

because we come to believe we are horrible, shameful beings, of no worth. That things are “wrong” with us – that we do things “wrong” and will then be punished for it

As you learn to speak your truth, you will be standing up for yourself, and you will begin to learn to honor yourself - and that is a huge step toward loving oneself.

I invite you to read Marshall Rosenburg’s great book, Non-Violent Communication, and start using the techniques and understandings offered there. It will help you a lot.

It is crucial for you to move out of operating as a victim, and move into creator consciousness. To build up your own, inner power and sense of self.

Some of what you say, where you feel ashamed, seems to do with revealing your femininity, your feminine sexuality ...I’d look into that, if I were you, to see where that comes from.